The Triple Crown of Motorsport
Le Mans. Monaco. Indianapolis. Arguably the three most prestigious motor races on the planet, and slightly less arguably the most recognisable. It's become popular recently, thanks mainly to Alonso, to treat this as an "official" designation for the Triple Crown of Motorsport. The Triple Crown consists of the Indianapolis 500, the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and the Monaco Grand Prix, of which Graham Hill is the only winner in the whole history of motor racing.
Or does it? In this interview in 1975, Graham claims that it is not the Monaco Grand Prix, but the World Championship of Drivers that defines the "Grand Prix" segment of the Triple Crown. This makes a degree of sense, as at the time there was only one world championship for drivers in motor racing, that being of course the one analogous to the title currently held by Lewis Hamilton. And besides, for many years it could be argued that it was not Monaco, but the French Grand Prix that was the most prestigious of them all: It was by far the oldest and yielded the most prize money of any event on the Formula 1 calendar.
Even now I'm sure there are some reading who would argue: Why not the Daytona 500, or the Bathurst 1000, or the Nürburgring 24 Hours? And I would agree that they each have a perfectly valid claim. As ever, the Nostalgia Forum provides some good insights, particularly this one from none other than Doug Nye:
Doug Nye wrote:I wouldn't swear to it, but I've got a feeling that back in 1972 or whenever it was, I was one of the first blokes to waffle on about Graham Hill having achieved an unofficial 'triple crown' of motor racing's pinnacle achievements - at THAT TIME some things were unargued:
The most prestigious international title was the Formula 1 Drivers' World Championship -
The most prestigious, most charismatic and most universally well known individual open-wheeler race worldwide was the Indy 500 -
And the most prestigious, most charismatic and most universally well known sports car race worldwide (if that's not a clash with 'universally'?) was the Le Mans 24-Hours.
NASCAR at that time was no more than an earner for a bunch of red-necked deep south motor sporting dyslexics who didn't understand that good cars should also turn right.
Not a single solitary Grand Prix (not even Monaco) nor any other road race came even close in public perception to the contemporary stature of Le Mans. No rallies counted at all. The general public had never heard of the Targa Florio, nor of the Nurburgring, and the Carrera PanAmericana was another euphemism for the Mexican two-step wasn't it?...Montezuma's Revenge...
At the time when Graham completed his personal triple crown with his victory at Le Mans the accolade was indeed valid...
I suppose this demonstrates how things have changed since the seventies. Monaco has arguably become even more prestigious since then (especially with the French Grand Prix becoming just another round of the championship), NASCAR (and, therefore, the Daytona 500) is now treated as a perfectly legitimate form of world class competition (well, among people who don't fall back on the usual oval racing stereotypes...), and the Targa has been consigned to history.
I suppose what prompted me to write about this one in particular was seeing the prevalence of people very strictly clinging to the "Monaco" definition of the Triple Crown as opposed to the "World Championship" definition (particuarly when Jacques Villeneuve, who explicitly targeted the Triple Crown himself at Peugeot, is brought up), when both are equally valid, which is to say, it doesn't really matter too much. In truth, motor racing is so diverse it would be impossible to simply pick three events and call it a Triple Crown without omitting another highly prestigious event or even an entire discipline (I haven't even mentioned rallying yet!).
I am of course happy with the current generally accepted definition and it remains a unique achievement whichever way you slice it, but by no means should it ever be treated as "official" under any definition. I'm glad it's giving a top-class driver a reason to step out of his comfort zone and hope it encourages other F1 drivers to do the same. I feel that the sport's too provincial and elitist these days.
I will be back with more at some later date. If anyone has their own misconception they'd like to write about please do so. Hopefully I can check another one off my list that way.